Dublin
After our escapade in London we flew a mere hour over to my other favorite accent country Ireland. My grandma claims we have ancestry here, I don’t see it, but every saint patricks day I say I’m 1.5% irish, since a person can know.
Generator Hostel
- Overall 3 stars
- We stayed in Generator Hostel – the main are resembles admirably a swanky lounge with a fully stocked bar and I think ten pool tables.
- I stayed in a 6 person room alone since we messed up our bookings. The bed was comfy, good wifi, good charging station but the shared private bathroom was not something I’d do again. The toilets didn’t flush so there’s that.
Food scene
Dublin delicacies
- Irish smoked salmon – didn’t really taste / notice a difference from now smoked salmon
- Irish stew – vegetable and meat stew with a dash of Guinness
- Shepard’s Pie – a potato topping meat dish
- Irish Soda Bread – a dark hearty grain bread that is usually served with butter
- Bangers and Mash – Irish sausage with mashed potatoes
- Guinness – dark malt beer colored by the hops used in processing
When you think of Dublin not often do you think of cute restaurants around every turn but indeed it is true. For my Minnesotans / badgers it’s like excelsior / state street on steroids.
The bake house
1950-styled cafe with sit-in and take away pastries. They serve brunch until 12 and lunch thereafter. The waitstaff are dressed in paisley pink aprons with there hair pinned in buns. If I already wasn’t in love with it all the brunch selection sold me. I got the granola with fruit which was about the best I’ve had in my life.
![Granola - The BakeHouse]()
![Irish Smoked Salmon Salad - Brakenhouse]()
![Banana and Caramel Pie - The Quay Street Kitchen]()
![the-queen-of-tarts]()
![blueberry-scone-with-raspberry-sauce]()
![yogurt-salad-the-queen-of-tarts]()
Granola – The BakeHouse
The brakenhouse
A bar off the side of the main road, covered entrance leading into a seat yourself pub. Our room was wallpapered with dollar bills signed with names and dates from all the different states. Tried out the Irish smoked salmon in salad form. Essentially I got all the ingredients for lox and breakfast being my ultimate meal of choice I couldn’t have been happier.
Irish Smoked Salmon Salad – Brakenhouse
The Quay Street Kitchen
In Galloway we stopped for our lunch / dinner break. It was pouring rain so instead of sightseeing we went to the nicest looking restaurant. Per quo quo Galloway mimicked Dublin in its abundance of cute shops.
The quay street kitchen adorned with a purple banner eluded luxury with comfort. The crystal chandeliers hanging clearly weren’t Tiffany but offset the gold paneling and green ascents throughout the store. The kitchens kitchenly noises and smells permeated right into our noses.
We all ordered a local cider called stonewall (so good).
I got the Seabass salad, a special of the day, which was oven seared Seabass atop a bed of lettuce and green beans sprinkled with oven roasted potatoes, dried sweet potato shavings, and red onion.
- For dessert we got the banesserie – a caramel banana treat that I must find a recipe for.
Banana and Caramel Pie – The Quay Street Kitchen
The Queen of Tarts
Some people are atheists and I respect your opinion BUT if you could experience heaven while alive you’d have visited the Queen of Tarts.
It’s two storied shambolic arrangement of circular wooden tables juxtaposed amongst the bird lovers wallpaper and window seating. you can tell by the aromas wafting from the first story kitchen that the array of pastries are freshly baked.
We all sampled the three selections of scones – blueberry, chocolate, and raspberry dusted with powdered sugar and served with jam and butter with a choice of cream
Surprise I got the fruit and yogurt (don’t hate they don’t have this in sevilla).
What’s what
H- is silent three – tree
Sclanche – irish for cheers
Quay – is pronounced key
- Dublin dubs as a tsunami rain forest with bipolar mood swings. Literally it can be raining for five minutes then switch to blue skies, come prepared.
Walking tour of Dublin
- Dublin isn’t as large as you think, yes I know we had just came from LONDON whose size is the same as New York City but even the locals say it’s easy to get around.
- We managed to hit the major attractions all in one day. We saw trinity college, St. Stevens park, grafton street (like Michigan ave in Chicago), temple bar area, St. Patrick’s cathedral, Christ church, and whelans bar (where p.s. I love you was filmed!).
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![In front of St. Patricks Cathedral]()
In front of St. Patricks Cathedral
Guinness Factory experience- For 14,5€ the Guinness experience gives you a self guided tour of three floors with audio option, a tasting and pouring instruction, and of course a complementary Guinness beer.
- Guinness- what it really is: wheat barely hops and yeast
- 100,000 tons of barely per year give beer characteristic deep ruby red color
HopsOnly grow in two regions of the wox 35-55 north or south of equatiod can grow to 15 ft allow preservationYeastArthur’s yeast tradicional strand and goes into each brew turns natural sugar in grain / fruit to alcohol and co2Water used for brewing is called liquorHistory- When Aurthur Guinness signed the rights for this estate in 1759 he got it for 9,000 years
- Aurthur and his wife had 21 children in total, they buried 11 of the children
The processBrewing, roasting (barely until all brown color), mashing, boiling (hops added) makes wort, fermentation yeast added to wort for 2 days, maturation 9 day processLearned how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness, not as easy as it looks.Cliff of mohr tour- 12 hours of a tour with 2 hours at the cliffs and 15 minutes at these alien rock structure and 2 hours at Galloway, the rest is riding the bus with no bathroom.
- Our guide was very friendly and knew a lot about the irish countryside.
- We drive through limerick nicknamed the murder city but now it has cleaned up its act.
- Balivan – whiskey: water of life known for irish irish monks brought to Europe. Special in Ireland since its triple distilled here
- In the process of aging each year a portion of whiskey is lost, they call it the Angels share
- The Cliffs of Mohr are beautiful breathtaking cliffs surrounded by the crashing Atlantic Ocean, it kind of reminded me of Luna Lovegood’s housing situation. The day we ventured to the outskirts felt as if the dark mark was about to be cast into the sky. The wind alone could knock a small child down, add in the horizontal rain and that was our day. It was still a maravilla. The juxtapose colors of blue and green just opened your eyes and mouth simultaneously. Nature really is the most marvelous aspect of our world.
We ended up at the pub seen in P.S. I love you – there was no live performer but it was a cool atmosphere. Dublin was filled with the nicest people with the best kind of accents. I would definitely find a way back there during the warmer months to see all the places I couldn’t with that short amount of time.